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Brotherhood & Barbershop Series, 2024 (Ongoing)

 

      Brotherhood & Barbershops is an exploratory body of work that reimagines the terrain of barbershops and its practices as both a place and method of engaging race, gender expressions, intimacies, and care. More specifically, this show explores/reimagines Blackness/Brownness, masculinities, platonic/erotic intimacies, and informal mental health care through barbering and the barbershop. I put forth work that stems from my research that explores/reimagines the possibilities of artmaking and barbering as a form of informal mental health care and social bonding for Black/Latino masc peoples. This exploratory care-work takes multifaceted form as written scholarship/research notes, digital paintings, multidimensional (media) portraits, digital drawings, sketches, photographs, poetry, video art, and a collaborative pop-up barbershop to represent the fieldwork and case studies research starting in Spring 2024 and ongoing. I experiment with Arts-Based Ethnography processes and documentation in this body of work to connect with audiences through my own vulnerability of the research and artmaking process to share my experience studying with participants as co-researchers of this ongoing research project. This project for me is deeply rooted in empathy and embraces the messiness of life experiences alongside academic work to pursue harmony through research, artmaking, and barbering practices. Come stop by the "shop", get a haircut, check out some art, catch a vibe! —It’s all love. we gotchu next, bro!